Tag: workshop

Learn the art of soldering electronics. When you build electronics, you solder the wires and components together or to the board so that the electrical connections are made. Learn a steady hand to make those solders while you build a sound sensor machine.

Our most popular workshop is back! Attend while Robin is still available!

Learn the basics for micro-controller coding and project design in our workshop hosted by Robin Mosely, Great Lakes IT, Inc., CEO and a former Bell Labs board designer. Robin has lots of examples- from robots to music synthesizers to motion detectors and machine controllers- to get you interested in your next project.

The workshop provides basics for creating and programming your own projects using Arduino. And Robin can answer ANY question you have about electronics!

This past Saturday, workshop attendees had fun learning circuit design and micro-controller programming using Arduinos. Students programmed flashing LEDs in various sequences, sounds using a piezo speaker, and more.

Flashbacks to the ’80s and 90’s occurred as the theme songs of PacMan and Star Wars came from the Arduino boards.

Our instructor, Robin Moseley, a former Bell Labs scientist who designed microcontrollers and other hardware and software, explained what a microcontroller is, circuit design, and the many uses of Arduinos and similar boards. He brought in many of the projects he has built with Arduinos, including drones, robots light displays, sound synthesizers, music samplers and connected devices (Nest, Alexa, etc.) sorts of things that can be easy DIY projects.

Students left with a full development kit including the Arduino, breadboard for wiring circuits prior to soldering permanent connections, sensors and resources to find and make more projects.

Tired of Fidget Spinners? Want something unique? Flexagons are the next evolution of fidget spinners. Every time you fold them you get a new pattern.

Workshop
They’ve entertained Nobel Laureates with their blend of art and mathematical secrets. Learn the history, construction, and beauty of flexagons from a world-renowned expert as you design your own.

This hands-on workshop introduces Flexagons for Makers. Participants will learn how to create Flexagons from Triangles, Squares, Trapazoids, and other geometric shapes. Flexing a Flexagon reveals numerous different faces hiding within the paper model and decorated with creative artwork of your choice. This Workshop introduces the history, geometry, and construction for hexaflexagons, square flexagons, dodecaflexagons, and many others. Participants will make flexagons from paper templates and will be able to use their own creativity to design the faces for a hexaflexagon and a square flexagon. The instructor will have numerous flexagons of all variations for participants to view.

Instructor

Robin Moseley is the creator of the “Flexagon Portal” which has been the number 1 ranking flexagon website for over 10 years on Google search. Robin has been referenced in numerous flexagon publications, videos, and books for his ideas and research on flexagons.

Yuri Gallegos contracted Dengue Fever from a mosquito on a trip to Brazil. That painful experience was motivation enough to create Elimifly, a better way to control mosquitoes to spare others from the many awful illnesses they spread.

Meet Yuri and learn how he succeeded with crowdfunding and how you can use it to raise startup funds, validate your idea, and launch your business.

Yuri will share the lessons he’s learned building a business, Quasar Designs. In this presentation and Q&A, Yuri will also share his entrepreneurial journey with us- from developing ideas to building prototypes to finding funding, suppliers and customers.

We don’t have a lathe yet, but we’ve found a great resource for those of you who are interested in learning about and using lathes.

We were visited by a member of the Illiana Woodturners, a non-profit group in South Holland who provide workshops and equipment (5 lathes of various sizes) for individuals to do amazing woodturning projects from bowls to baseball bats.